Behind the limpid, pastel scenes of “Birth” is the terror of the irrevocable loss death invariably brings. That terror is the basis of all legends of the afterlife, of reincarnation; life is so precious that the idea that when we die, we simply go out like candles verges on the intolerable. You must bring this awareness with you to “Birth,” because the movie itself doesn’t confront it head-on; it takes the concept for granted. Jonathan Glazer, director of “Sexy Beast,” deserves praise for treating the idea with seriousness, even solemnity. But the story of the film would work better had it been treated as a comedy. As it is, it’s so deeply somber as to verge on accidental self-parody.

But what keeps bringing it back upright is the performance of Nicole Kidman. Her Anna is (eventually) so committed to the peculiar concept of reincarnation that she essentially defies us not to agree with her. Early on, she even supports a three-minute closeup with no dialogue, just Wagnerian music in the theater she’s attending, by the very subtle emotional changes brushing across her face.

The movie opens with black screen as a man’s voice scoffs at the idea of reincarnation. Then there’s an impressive tracking shot following that man jogging through wintry Central Park; the unusual music is neither an accompaniment to his actions nor a clue guiding us in terms of response. (Throughout, the music is unusual, including over the end credits.) The man suddenly collapses and dies. At the same moment, elsewhere a baby is born. (The title is, however, oblique and puzzling.)

Ten years later, the man’s widow, Anna (Nicole Kidman) and Joseph (Danny Huston) are holding a party for their wealthy friends celebrating their engagement. Anna lives on the Upper East Side in an elegant apartment shared with her mother Eleanor (Lauren Bacall), her sister Laura (Alison Elliot) and her husband Bob (Arliss Howard). As Anna’s friends Clifford (Peter Stormare) and his wife Clara (Anne Heche) arrive in the lobby, Clara ducks aside for a moment with a weak excuse. She goes into the wintry (again) park and buries the gift, then buys a replacement. She’s followed by a solemn-faced boy we later learn is Sean (Cameron Bright).

Some time later, Anna and Laura celebrate Eleanor’s birthday. Sean
enters, amusing the guests, and insists on talking to Anna in the
kitchen. She thinks it’s some kind of charming game until the boy
announces that he is actually Sean, her late husband.

We follow the course of this surprising announcement. At first
skeptical, Anna is almost ready to accept the idea after Bob
tape-records an interview he has with Sean. The boy does seem to know
surprising details of the lives of Sean and Anna, but
still—reincarnation?! He’s the son of a tutor (Ted Levine) who often
works in Eleanor’s apartment building. Sean’s father and mother (Cara
Seymour) are baffled by the boy’s behavior, and the mother is hurt when
he tells her that he isn’t her “stupid son” any longer.

Anna’s willingness to believe increases to the point where she is
willing to take a naked bath with the boy. This scene is going to
result in a lot of outrage and shock, but there’s no nudity involved,
and the two don’t touch one another. Still, it is an eye-opener, more
than the more explicit early sex scene between Anna and Joseph.

This is Glazer’s second film, and radically different in style from
“Sexy Beast.” But he seems to have tried to make the film as Stanley
Kubrick would have, with unusual but elegant camera angles, trucking
shots, imaginative placement of dialog and an emphasis on sets and
surroundings. The movie is also shot in desaturated, almost sour color,
with low-light photography; this gives the interiors a greenish-gold
tinge that becomes wearisome; a movie shouldn’t be a strain simply to
watch.

However, for all his faithfulness to Kubrick’s style, he misses
something very important: presented with this material, Kubrick would
have either made it more grim, or much funnier—he loved irony, but
Glazer evades it. The movie is almost drained of humor; one of the few
deliberate jokes (if that’s the word) is Bacall referring to the boy as
“Mr. Reincarnation.” I presume Glazer was hyper-cautious about the
possibility of bad laughs, or of deliberate ones that, once achieved,
would keep the audience laughing even when he didn’t want that kind of
response.

Kidman is outstanding, by far the best thing about the film, and the
only basically sympathetic character. Danny Huston’s Joseph is hard to
decipher—are we to regard him as a good choice for Anna? He says he
loves her, and she’s willing to marry him—but his late almost violent
response to Sean is shocking and disturbing. Still, that’s the only
time he shows any strong feelings. The parts of all the other players
are significantly underwritten; Stormare and Bacall fare the best
because of their strong screen presence. But Anne Heche is left
floating; her character seems erratic and annoying.

Cameron Bright, the boy who plays Sean, is unusually grave, and
resembles a miniature Christopher Walken. Until near the end, he never
smiles, and he never laughs; he never shows any intensity of any sort.
Glazer is so cautious about edging into humor that he drains the boy of
any real life. He doesn’t even make his claims to be the reincarnation
of Anna’s husband with any energy. His seriousness is supposed to make
his claims more convincing, but it doesn work that way.

The photography by Harris Savides is clean and precise, but the subdued
color and dim light rob the movie of any real visual texture—it seems
soft and blurry throughout, like a fading memory. This also results in
the final scene taking place in the bleakest, most leafless May in
northern hemisphere history.

Kevin Thompson’s production design is realistic, but the narrow,
ill-lit hallways of the apartment tend to induce claustrophobia. The
most exceptional aspect of the movie, apart from Kidman’s affecting
performance, is the imaginative, layered use of sound. Everything from
the silken slither of sheets to the moist sound of a tongue during
speech is rendered with crystal clarity, but always in the service of
the scene.

It’s hard to care about any of the characters; all except Kidman remain
remote and uninteresting. “Birth” is a respectable movie, and Glazer
was courageous to try to realize his unusual idea in the form of a
drama—but the movie never jells, never comes together.